Breaking the stereotype of the stereotype

Nothing affirms high school cliques and stereotypes better than teen movies. It’s impossible to have any teen movie without the popular kids (composed of gorgeous model-cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends), the overachieving members of the student council, the intelligent yet anti-social nerds, the rebellious, apathetic rockers, and the people labeled as losers (curiously, they’re always the good-looking stars of the movie). The ‘80s cult classic The Breakfast Club showed five people from very different high school crowds clashing in detention. Several movies include the typical "grand tour" scene, where a new kid is introduced to the different cliques in his or her high school, just like in Clueless, Ten Things I Hate About You and Mean Girls. The perpetual problem in these flicks is what happens when two people from opposite ends of the "popularity scale" fall in love? Pretty in Pink (dorky Molly Ringwald pining after popular Andrew McCarthy), She’s All That (campus king Freddie Prinze Jr. turns the artsy Rachel Leigh Cook into prom queen and falls in love), A Walk to Remember (Shane West finds hope in Mandy Moore’s faith), Bring It On (head cheerleader Kirsten Dunst finds unconventional guitarist Jesse Bradford adorable). Yes, what is a high school story without the battle of the barkadas?

Even after being with the same people in grade school and high school, I admit that there were a lot of stereotypes that segregated the batch into several groups. After several years, people’s impressions of others were still the same. I used to think that when I got to college, all the stereotypes that people carried from high school would wither away into memories. Being in the same school, classes, and environment helped solidify whatever reputation one had in high school. I thought when graduation came and one entered the vast and populous world of college, he or she would have to start from scratch. Also, after watching all the teen movies, I always thought cliques were a high school thing. Stories about college were about throngs of students, varied outfits ranging from pajamas to retro wear, numerous student organizations for all interests, tambayans scattered all over campus. College would introduce a greater sense of freedom and diversity. How can you categorize thousands of other students right away?

Only after two whole years in college did I realize that stereotypes do exist in college. Sometimes, they could even go beyond stereotyping individuals and cliques, but could also include courses, high schools and colleges. For example, I go to a school where people are stereotyped as arrogant spoiled brats by other schools. I’m always so annoyed when people assume that I think I’m better – no, superior, to people just because of my school. I’m not. And I certainly don’t think I am. I was aware of this stereotype even before I started college, but I didn’t care. I wanted to go to this school because I felt that it was here that I could best discover my personal growth and greatness, not because of any reputation I would get because of it. I hoped that people would eventually realize that stereotypes don’t apply to everyone and that they would think twice before categorizing people.

Recently, I realized that even I had my own stereotypes. Whenever my friends and I would talk about our high schools, certain characteristics of people from schools would emerge. We would talk about a person from a certain school, then one of us would make a comment about him or her, and we’d all end up saying, "That’s typical (insert name of school)!" I’m also taking classes with people from practically all the courses of the school of management in our school, and I’m starting to form general impressions about people in each course. As much as I try to keep myself from generalizing, I end up doing so. Apparently, there’s no escaping stereotypes, whether you’re in college or high school.

But is having stereotypes necessarily a bad thing? In my philosophy class, we discussed that we all actually have biases and prejudices – it’s a part of our being limited beings. It’s impossible to be neutral about anything. Our biases reflect what world we move around in and what our own culture is like. We are able to understand the world through our stereotypes. When we form stereotypes, we are able to make sense of all the things around us and especially the people around us. We are able to understand why people do certain things, hang out in certain places, relate to certain people, behave in certain ways.

What is wrong is that when we refuse to change our foreunderstanding when we observe something new or discover something outside of your world and culture. We must always be ready to change our stereotypes to be able to interact with and understand our constantly changing world. When we discover that not everyone from this high school is a spoiled rich kid, or that not everyone from this college is a rebellious revolutionary, or that a certain "nerd" we know actually likes to party hard, this can confuse us and shake our foreunderstanding. Sometimes we stubbornly stick to our stereotypes and biases, and we end up having conflicts with others and even ourselves.

Of course, biases are different from values. There are the core values that we must never let go of, beliefs that create the foundation of our moral systems. But we must always keep our eyes, minds, and hearts ready for the changes that time may lead us to. Imagine if women were never allowed to vote, work, or wear pants. Imagine if African-Americans still had to separate themselves from others just because of their color. Imagine if high school dropouts could never rid themselves of the stigma of being uneducated failures. People had their biases before, but they were able to change their outlooks and opinions.

Yes, stereotypes aren’t essentially bad – another stereotype is broken. And contrary to popular belief, we can actually learn something from teeny-bopper movies. All of us will have stereotypes, biases, and prejudices, but we still have the power to rise above them and change. Chalk up another one for broke stereotypes. What stereotype are you going to break today?